Het is goed!
Last year I did many free online courses via Futurelearn and Coursera and the same is planned this year. I'm already enjoying the Rolling Stones course, a history/development of Hollywood cinema and one about England in the time of RIchard III, but this week saw the start of the Futurelearn Introduction to Dutch.
I can't say Dutch is a language I've ever really considered learning (with the caveat that nearly all languages are fair game in the abstract as I love learning new tongues), partly because I can pretty much read it enough to follow along, by pretending its sideways on German. The course is pretty well structured thus far though, very clear dialogues and moves quite fast but gives a good grounding in grammar as well. There's handy links to an online grammar overview, and as well as the in-course quizzes that are standard features of Futurelearn courses there's a link to a thing called Quizlet that drills you on the things learned (pronouns, regular verb conjugation and to be/to have to begin with). I'm enjoying it, although my brain was getting all 'splodey about halfway through so the week's work clearly needs to be done in several sittings..
Dutch is a new language on DuoLingo apparently, so that'll keep me happy if I am truly hooked on Dutch. Oh and I also gave babbel.com a go, as it has been advertised on tv a lot of late, and I like that format a lot, but not enough to fork out a monthly subscription for it, sheesh!
How taking on Dutch as this years language (I usually get language "cravings" round about Feb/March) is going to fit in with the fact that this years language was supposed to be Latin again, after a long break from same, remains to be seen. They're very different though so I shouldn't get them mixed too much..
I can't say Dutch is a language I've ever really considered learning (with the caveat that nearly all languages are fair game in the abstract as I love learning new tongues), partly because I can pretty much read it enough to follow along, by pretending its sideways on German. The course is pretty well structured thus far though, very clear dialogues and moves quite fast but gives a good grounding in grammar as well. There's handy links to an online grammar overview, and as well as the in-course quizzes that are standard features of Futurelearn courses there's a link to a thing called Quizlet that drills you on the things learned (pronouns, regular verb conjugation and to be/to have to begin with). I'm enjoying it, although my brain was getting all 'splodey about halfway through so the week's work clearly needs to be done in several sittings..
Dutch is a new language on DuoLingo apparently, so that'll keep me happy if I am truly hooked on Dutch. Oh and I also gave babbel.com a go, as it has been advertised on tv a lot of late, and I like that format a lot, but not enough to fork out a monthly subscription for it, sheesh!
How taking on Dutch as this years language (I usually get language "cravings" round about Feb/March) is going to fit in with the fact that this years language was supposed to be Latin again, after a long break from same, remains to be seen. They're very different though so I shouldn't get them mixed too much..